Fuel application

PUBLISHED: 10:04 03 January 2007 | UPDATED: 10:23 24 May 2010

A MISTAKE in paperwork has been blamed for confusion over a planning application to store petrol at a series of underground tanks in Portishead. The Oil and Pipelines Agency (OPA) has applied to North Somerset Council for consent to continue to use the fu

A MISTAKE in paperwork has been blamed for confusion over a planning application to store petrol at a series of underground tanks in Portishead.The Oil and Pipelines Agency (OPA) has applied to North Somerset Council for consent to continue to use the fuel storage depot at Redcliffe Bay. The depot, which has a number of underground tanks that pump kerosene to RAF bases across the country, was built in 1958.In the application, it proposed to use the tanks to store petroleum as well as kerosene, which prompted fears from local residents who feared the move would be a potential fire hazard.But a spokesman for the agency said there are no plans to use the depot to store petrol and admitted there had been a mistake in the application.A spokesman for the OPA said: "There is not any intention to store gasoline in the tanks. We have made a number of applications for a number of sites throughout the country and there was an error in the Redcliffe Bay application."The OPA was forced to submit an application for the continued use of the depot following changes in Government policy.Previously, because the site is classed as Crown Property, planning permission was not needed.Now a full application for the site is needed and has been lodged with North Somerset Council.The spokesman said: "If gasoline was going to be stored at Redcliffe Bay, work costing hundreds of thousands of pounds would have to be carried out to the site. The Redcliffe Bay site would not be economically viable as a gas storage area and the only fuel stored there will be aviation fuel.